Finding Kate
As job seekers struggle, millions of Americans lose their right to basic healthcare, and the horrors happening just outside my home in Los Angeles feel louder every day — like most people, I’ve been trying to find moments of joy. A single lotus in the muddy waters that is the world right now. A temporary escape.
And lately, I’ve found myself drawn to childhood photo albums, specifically the ones with Kate, my first friend. Our brief friendship started in the late 1980s and ended in 1991, but somehow these photos mean something deeper. Something more than I’ve felt before.
It even led me to dust off TikTok and start searching for her. For what reason? To thank her for my early social skills? For being the first to teach me the value of friendship? I honestly have no plan.
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What I do know is that these photos bring me joy. Because right now, they represent the power of innocence. A time when the contrasts were invisible to my eyes. A child of a fresh immigrant with jet black hair and downturned eyes, playing alongside a girl with bright blonde hair and rosy cheeks. A friendship built on play and proximity. Not race. Not status. Just being human.
Now, as an obvious adult, I carry both conscious and unconscious biases. Collecting each one like flies on a windshield as I drive through life. I see those contrasts more clearly now, especially when just outside my door, beautiful people are being taken by unmarked vans and sent to camps because of their race, immigration status, or the color of their skin.
Seeing these contrasts used to divide and harm has forced me to reflect. I’m not a scientist, psychologist, or therapist. I’m not anything that ends in “ist” that would make me credible. But I do believe that the contrasts themselves aren’t the enemy. It’s the fear we attach to them that creates suffering.
So these photos with Kate are a reminder. A reminder to tap into that innocence. To look beyond the surface. To pause and ask myself if I’m acting out of fear. Maybe even this post comes from fear.
And maybe, at the end of all this remembering, that’s the whole point. Maybe I’ll never find Kate. Maybe she’s changed her name, moved far away, or never joined social media. But this search, whether it leads anywhere, is a small act of remembering something simple. That once, we became friends by seeing each other as just humans. And maybe, if more of us could return to that kind of seeing, there would be less suffering.
